Your Venerable Buddhist Monks,
Your Excellency Yvon Roé d’Albert, the Ambassador of Republic of France to the Kingdom of Cambodia,
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today, my wife and I have a great pleasure to join you all in the presentation degrees to 47 low ranking “progressive” promotion officials and training certificates to 142 high and middle ranking officials of year 2005 at the Royal School of Administration.
Indeed, the 2005 training programme for low ranking officials and trainees is over and new 2006 training course is starting; this is a new evidence reflecting the priority focus of the Royal Government on human resource development and vocational training and also innovative mind, curiosity, knowledge seeing and courteous attitude that is necessary for civil servant in fulfilling their responsibilities to contribute to socio-economic development which is an important part in reducing poverty and enhance living standards of our people, these are the main objectives of the Royal Government.
At this auspicious and joyful event, on behalf of the Royal Government, my self and also my wife and I would like to extend the enthusiasm and compliment to the achievements made by the Royal School of Administration as well as the efforts of trainees, students and lecturers of the Royal School of Administration for attaining fruitful results with satisfactory quality.
My wife and I are proud of all 189 trainees and students who are graduating today; it is not only your achievements, but also of the nation as a whole. This will contribute to improvement of quantity and quality of human resources which are the important factors in the Rectangular Strategy of the Royal Government which focus on accelerating economic growth, creating more jobs, improving social equity and enhancing efficiency in public sector. It is clear that achievements of you all today will contribute to the successful implementation of the Rectangular Strategy of the Royal Government.
As reported by H.E. Ly Kimsok, Director of the Royal School of Administration, 2,131 civil servants were trained which consists of 47 low-ranking officials called “progressive” promotion and 142 high and middle ranking officials who are going to received certificate and degree shortly.
Indeed, this accomplishment would not be possible without support from development partners that made the training course operational and successful. On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, my own and my wife behalf, I would like to extend my gratitude to the People and the Government of France via H.E. Yvon Roé d’Albert, the Ambassador of Republic of France, which has valuably contributed to the project of priority solidarity fund for “Supporting Modernization of Public Administration” especially provided assistances to modernize the Royal School of Administration.
Experiences from developments have told us clearly that progress of each country relies on intellectual capitals which play a leading role in management and problem solving. At the same time, intellectual capitals provide knowledge and education to people via literatures, writings, research documents; and maintenances, conservation and development of national culture; as well as science research findings and discoveries. In this sense, extent of development of a country is reflected by the abundance of intellectual capitals and people who have rich experiences, knowledge and know-how and they are the force in driving the society in the intellectual way and ensuring absolute advantage of a nation.
Certainly, in the age of knowledge and information technology of the 21st century, the role of intellectual capitals and talents grows to be more significant in the society and such knowledge becoming a determined factor for accelerating economic potential and comparative advantage of the nation to be a reality and especially for gaining absolute advantage of each country. In this regard, I strongly believe that “Economic growth and poverty reduction steam from building human resources,” therefore “universal value of education is an effective mean for developing personality of people and promoting sustainable development of a nation and an equitable growth distribution.”
Again, my wife and I commend the low ranking students and high and middle ranking trainees who were in the training program for a year and absorbed knowledge and gained necessary capacities for their future mission in public administration as well as use it in their profession during internship in central and local government. Indeed, the Royal School of Administration is responsible for high intellectual and capacity trainings of government officials. Such responsibilities make the school plays an important role in human resources development in the Kingdom of Cambodia. It is worth to note that theRoyal School of Administration is celebrating its 50th anniversary in this year; it is originated as French tradition and has adapted subsequently to be Khmer tradition. Therefore, the Royal School of Administration is the actor of changes with forward looking view on administrative and pedagogy reforms. In this sense, the managements of school must carefully listen to the demand from all government institutions.
We must also recall the school’s responsibility to select outstanding students which represent the strong opportunity to serve the country. What is this responsibility for? Without any doubt, it is to ensure the following:
1. Capacity: it is to ensure that the country with talented individuals, virtue and genuine and possess necessary capacity, include both knowledge and know-how.
2. Honesty: it is not to think of personal interests, avoid unethical behavior and abuse of power; and must put collective and the nation interest above all else.
3. Determination: it is to be devoted to work and actively participate in the sharing of ideas and finding solutions aiming at improving the quality of work, constantly enhance personal capacity and understand other colleague’s problems.
4. Obedience: it is to know what is right and wrong, to listen to the managers and to obey the law and to have good moral behavior and ethical attitude.
The Royal School of Administration also responsible for establishing the equity in training which is appropriate to the state’s demand. In this regard, the training of Khmer nationals by Khmer professors is a priority, and teaching by trained professionals to fulfill the school’s mission which is a Practical School with the capacity to provide knowledge and developing necessary capacity for a good administrative operation and to focus on practicality of all teaching subjects.
Indeed, public work is the heart of administrative and state reforms where, in a sense, it has two important functions:
a). The public service delivery. Those young fellow students at the Royal School of Administration must not forget the fact that they are the state’s servants. State servants mean not only those with the power to rule but to serve of every citizen, especially those that are most vulnerable and poor people.
b). The public service functions; with an objective to lead the state reform, creating a favorable condition for the development of the country via the improvement of the people’s living conditions and contributing to the development of the economy.
We must also remember that, public service along with the basic functions must be ready to governor the implementation and evaluate the public decisions. This requires a deep understanding of the society, the ability to analyze as well as to make proposals, advices and recommendations. At the same time, this public service must also ensure the acquisition of judicial and administrative competency which is necessary for altering and guiding the political direction to become real techniques and to allow good implementation of this political decision. In this sense, I would like to reinstate that public administration is a permanent organization full of capable government officials with high professional moral and are not subjected to change as the politic changes. I would like to make a final observation on this point by stressing that public administration is the administration with neutrality, hence, the “quota-based political system is no longer the approach for the appointment of the administration”.
Indeed, development can proceed unless we have an abundance of intellectual capitals with talents and professional skills and to use and manage those intellectual assets with high efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a favorable environment to develop, manage and make use of the intellectual capitals effectively and appropriately with the described criteria above; as in proverb “employing people with the right skill and talent for the right job will lead to the maximization of production”. In this sense, we can not proceed any further without a public administration with national conscience, morale and virtue profession, and high and necessary capacities which include both theoretical and practical knowledge. Therefore, for those of you who are receiving the degree today, I would like to remind you all to take the knowledge acquired from the trainings at the Royal School of Administration to serve the nation’s interests. At the same time, you shall remember that “knowledge, experience, and personality are the three angles stove which provide the support and protection to one another and one can not exist without another”.
Finally, I would like to whish you all with the Five Gems of Buddhist Blessing and happiness in this New Year, year of dog; year of 2550 of Buddhist Calendar. May all the graduates today have good health and the success in their new positions and jobs. May I announce the beginning of the training programme for high and middle ranking officials for the year 2006 from now on.
EndItem.
